There’s no one anywhere near me-–except that voice, a cavernous, reverberating voice, telling me to come forward. But there’s no forward. And where is back?

I spin until I’m a dancer on the top of a music box and stop.

“Mrs. Joan Ruckwin, there may have been a mistake?” It’s not a God it’s the voice of my fifth-grade math teacher addressing me.

“What do you mean?” I ask. “Where am I?” I don’t see anything. “A mistake?” Arthur? He was in the car with me. He’s not here. He must be alive. “You’re right, there’s been a huge mistake. I don’t belong here. I belong with my husband and he needs me.”

“Everything’s transparent,” my fifth-grade teacher answers.

“Well, get me down. I want off.”

“Look inside this,” I’m told.

I see Arthur. Arthur is not in the hospital.He’s laughing and having fun, with—with another woman?

I step back. “Why are you showing this to me? “

Suppose I suspected it. We watch Arthur drinking bubbly with another woman.
I turn away. “I don’t need to see any more.”

“You still want to go back?”

“Wait, so this isn’t hell, cause it’s not too shabby.”

“A midway point before total departure.”

Before I have another thought, swirls of compression land me onto the table with Mr. Ruckwin, and his new, soon to be, Mrs. from what it appears, admiring her new ring.

“Oh, hello, dear.I know you weren’t expecting me."

The woman spits up wine. My dear husband coughs, gasping until it overtakes him, and into a frenzy; coughing and choking with no one to give them the Heimlich maneuver.

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My Thriller Novella about Domestic Terrorism.

Hello!

A member of SCBWI. Contributor to @TheKidliterati ~ Mother of teens.
I can be found during daylight hours writing in the basement of a jazz club. When there's time to play, I sing and write songs or paint with watercolors and pretend I never have to grow up.